Freedom: Honk if you’re worried

By JoAnne Young

 

I’m worried, but I'm trying to reframe. Because I have tired of it, this worrying. I’ve been involved in this exercise for too many years, and my relationship with freedom has only gotten more dysfunctional, partly through my close observation of what’s going on in my state and a farther view of the rest of the country and the world. 

 

As I see it, freedom is trending down in Nebraska. But we are not alone. I could hold up some examples, but if you’re paying attention you already know: The freedom of women. The freedom of parents. Of voters. The freedom to educate and to learn. That freedom that allows us to feel safe in public and commercial spaces: schools, malls, theaters, festivals, concerts, the list goes on. 

 

There’s a number I can’t get out of my head recently: Eight hundred twenty. More than 800 bills – changes to law -- were introduced by Nebraska state senators in the 2023 legislative session. The Legislature passed provisions of 291 of those bills, some of which seriously restricted freedoms for some Nebraskans, including women, parents, youths. There are bills still sitting in committee that could advance next session, such as LB374, that is modeled after legislation in Florida, Kansas and Missouri and could limit, if passed, class discussions on racial history, that could make it easier to remove books in school libraries objected to by some parents, and restrict surveys of students such as the Youth Behavioral Risk Survey. 

 

Senators proposed rule changes this session that would remove the media from legislative committees during executive sessions, where critical discussions on bills take place. That would restrict our freedom of the press. 

 

Here’s a proposed rule change I could get behind: Limit senators to introduction of only 12 bills per session. Many senators propose much higher numbers of changes to Nebraska law each session that could impinge on our freedoms. This year, seven senators introduced more than 30 bills each, with Sen. Mike McDonnell of Omaha introducing 60. Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha came in second with 44. 

 

As one former Nebraska Chamber of Commerce president has said: If Nebraska is the good life, why does our Legislature seek to make so many changes every year? 

 

Any number of those changes could lead to mayhem. 

 

So yes, there’s lots to worry about this summer, even with the Legislature out of session and political campaigns not yet in full bloom. 

 

I watched a report on 60 Minutes that put freedom in perspective. It included interviews with three women in Ukraine’s military, waist deep in their country’s fight for freedom in the city of Mariupol, a town of 400,000 before the war but now devastated by Russian troops. As the fighting intensified, soldiers were cornered in a steel mill and watched as children died ugly deaths. At least 25,000 civilians in that city were killed during the Russian takeover. 

 

One of the women could only text her family with a plus sign each day to show them she was still alive. One of the three who was pregnant would ask fellow soldiers to kill her if she should get captured. They all ended up in POW prisons where they were tortured and had to listen to and watch the torture of others. All the while, the pregnant solider would whisper to her baby to hold on, that she must be delivered into freedom, onto the soil of a free Ukraine. The women eventually got home alive in a prisoner exchange, and the pregnant soldier’s baby was delivered into freedom ... for now. 

 

It was a lesson in freedom. I will still worry about our own democracy, and the threats to it from, not a foreign enemy but those who have a different view of our country from within. It is incentive to pay close attention this summer to what we still have in our country, our state, our own piece of tiny ground. 

 

I will focus through the next days, as we celebrate freedom here, on time well spent. I will heed the small delights. The sound of far-off thunder and faint momentary lighting of the sky as rain tries to make its way to my trees and grass and flowers, and the rivulets that cut paths down my windshield when it does arrive. I will think about the dog I saw today at the lake on a paddle board, settling down to enjoy the gliding across the water with its beloved person. 

 

This summer I will carry these moments of freedom, strange little details that matter, and try – not promising, just try -- not to worry.